


Caught

by Phiso



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Detectives, Fluff, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-01-21 17:37:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12462594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phiso/pseuds/Phiso
Summary: R/S Games 2017 - Day 20 - Team SiriusSirius Black was the thief no one could catch – at least, not until he met his match in Detective Inspector Remus Lupin.





	Caught

**Author's Note:**

> **Team:** Sirius  
>  **Title:** Caught  
>  **Rating:** PG  
>  **Warnings:** references to an abusive family and a near-death experience  
>  **Genres:** Fluff/Romance  
>  **Word Count:** 4200  
>  **Summary:** Sirius Black was the thief no one could catch – at least, not until he met his match in Detective Inspector Remus Lupin.  
>  **Notes:** Thanks to Nerak_Rose for inspiring the premise, and Tech for the line about a criminal’s schedule. Also thanks to Moma and BB for the beta!  
>  **Prompt:** #42 - "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it." - Oscar Wilde

Sirius Black never wanted for anything, and yet burned with the need to steal it all.

Young, brilliant, and handsome, Sirius could have gone into any industry and easily risen to the top. His family wanted him to go into the family prison business, and forced him to spend all of his free time learning the ins and outs of their facilities. He was known by every employee by the time he was eight; he had memorized the layout of every Black Family Securities prison by the time he was ten. By eleven, his family was convinced they had created the perfect heir.

Sirius became a thief instead.

It started when he was twelve. His parents had dragged him to a facility’s canteen for a surprise inspection. Everyone was distracted; his father was receiving an inventory report from staff, while his mother was watching the prisoner count out credits. It was mind-numbingly boring.

His eyes fell to a pile of bright red candy bars. They were cheap sweets, the kind popular amongst kids and the poor, and something he had never been allowed to try before. That wasn’t _real_  chocolate, his mother would sniff. If he wanted chocolate, he could have his fill of the hand-crafted boxes they had imported from abroad. No son of hers would ever eat the trash of the masses.

He instantly wanted it.

So, he took it.

No one noticed as he slipped it into his blazer pocket. The wrapper was cool and smooth in his hand, his mind imagining its outline burning like a brand through the fabric. His pulse quickened as he waited for someone, anyone, to tell him to put it back, but it never happened.

So that was what it felt like to steal. He liked it.

Unfortunately, his parents noticed the discrepancy a few minutes later, and Sirius discovered the blame would automatically go to the prisoner running the shop. The candy immediately lost its taste.

It was an important lesson: stealing from the downtrodden didn’t help anyone but the rich. He had seen the records; half of the men there hadn’t even had a fair trial. They had been convicted simply to make the judge, the prison, and his family richer. Their lives had been stolen just so his mother could keep buying plates she’d never use and his father could buy expensive cigars he’d burn away.

Sirius’s blood boiled, and he made a decision. He would be a thief. They had trained him to be one, after all; they had just expected him to steal from other people. He wanted to punish everyone involved in the system, every rich person who benefited from the suffering of these men, from the judges who sent him there to the storeowners, artists, and foundations that happily accepted his family’s money without question. He wanted to steal from the people who stole from everybody else.

Sirius set his sights outward.

He stole from his teachers, from visitors to the mansion, from shops his family patroned. He stole everything he could get his hands on – pens, wallets, jewelry, papers, keys – and squirreled them away in his room beneath floorboards and behind walls. If he wanted it, even if it was just for one moment, he took it. Soon he began storing his prizes in other rooms, aiming to learn how to hide things in plain sight. He got good. Very good.

On his sixteenth birthday, he received a fine new car. It was a shining black, respectable, and looked like something his father would drive. Indeed, his father already had five of a similar model. Sirius didn’t want it.

So instead, he packed up his belongings, fished out a pair of keys he had stolen from his father’s favorite salesman the year before, and went car shopping at 4 in the morning.

When the lead salesmen opened the next morning, he found a pair of keys he had sworn he had lost on his desk, and a red convertible missing from the lot.

\---

Sirius didn’t mind the attention he got from stealing things. In fact, he relished it. It was the perfect cover story: a disowned heir stealing from the very rich he used to schmooze with, never caught, but always taking the credit. His face was made for the papers. He especially liked dropping in on journalists working late hours, winking and flirting and giving them a quick quote before disappearing into the night.

He grew famous for his heists, and always made sure to do his biggest ones on his birthday, the anniversary of the start of his career.

The Black family hated him and denounced him every opportunity they got. Sirius loved every minute of it.           

The Black family would pay a pretty penny to the man who captured Sirius alive, and it became a heated competition. Detectives were constantly on his tracks, poring over every crime scene with delicate care and bickering over who got first access. Some insisted on working alone; others investigated in teams with agreements on how to split the money. No one ever came close.

Except one.

It was the night of the first snowfall of the season: December 12. Sirius was after the Toujour Pur, a diamond the Black family had stolen from abroad a century before. It was to go on display in London’s Natural History Museum, and Sirius not only really, really wanted to hold something that shiny, he also really, really wanted to ruin that exhibition for them.

The grounds’ security had doubled the moment the diamond got to the museum two days before, but that was no deterrent. Sirius rarely waltzed through doors anymore anyway. Maybe he did at 18, when he was still building a name for himself, but at 28? Nah. He considered this the height of his Subtle Period.

Sirius got in through the previously rigged window of an abandoned office on the fourth floor. Straightening his black shirt and trousers and adjusting his black gloves, he made sure he looked presentable before sneaking off to snatch the diamond. He always insisted on looking nice when getting what he wanted. Why spoil the moment looking bad?

Sirius avoided the exhibition hall where most of the guards were patrolling and went straight for the basement. He knew they weren’t guarding the real diamond. It was a pretty glass thing, awfully shiny, but not a diamond. Almost worth stealing, but he didn’t want it enough to try.

The basement had a handful of guards, and all of them were stupid. All it took was to break a window on the first floor to distract them, and Sirius was able to waltz right into storage.

Okay, so he lied, he did still just walk in, but he put a bit more effort into it, now.

Vaults, locks, combinations – all of them fell to their knees before Sirius, like lovers eager to open up for him. He treated them tenderly, thanking them for their help, and usually, no one was around to hear it.

“Thank you, my darling,” Sirius said, stroking the drawer’s handle. Its combination had been so easy to crack it felt like someone had set it up for him. “I knew I could count on you.”

Sirius let out a satisfied sigh as he pulled opened the velvet-lined drawer. The diamond glimmered inside, the light caught by countless facets and strewn about like glowing snow. He picked it up in both hands, bouncing his hands to test its weight, before holding it up to eye-level.

“You’re the real deal, all right,” Sirius murmured. “Glass doesn’t reflect like this.”

“Lives up to its name, doesn’t it?”

Sirius nearly dropped the diamond in surprise.

Clutching it to his chest, Sirius whipped around, eyes wide in shock as he spotted a detective across the room leaning against another set of drawers. He was half-covered in shadow, but looked to be the same age, was wearing about as much brown as Sirius was wearing black, and had very shabby clothes.

“It does,” Sirius replied, recovering swiftly. Shit, how was he going to get out of this? “You seen it before?”

The detective shook his head and moved forward into the light. “I don’t see a point in paying to see a shiny rock.”

Oh no, he was pretty. Sirius immediately wanted to steal him, too.

“So,” Sirius said casually, turning towards the diamond and studying the detective out of the corner of his eye. “Where do we go from here?”

“Theoretically, I would arrest you, and you’d go to jail,” said the detective.

“Theoretically,” Sirius agreed. “But it doesn’t sound like that’s what you’re going to do, Detective Inspector…?”

“Remus Lupin.” He inclined his head, bowing. Sirius found this an oddly polite thing to do to someone you planned to arrest, and it made him want this detective even more.

“It’s a pleasure, Remus,” Sirius said with his own little bow. “I suppose you know who I am.”

“I do.”

“Are you splitting the reward with anyone, or is it all for you?”

Remus gave him a funny look. “I’m not arresting you for the money.”

Sirius hummed, curious. “You’re not? Is it for justice?”

The funny look gave way to uncertainty. “Justice…”

Sirius liked that expression. He liked that Remus wasn’t after his family’s money even more.

“Why’d you become a detective, Remus?” he asked conversationally, leaning against the drawer on one arm. He examined the diamond in his other hand idly, mostly trying to figure out the right angle so that little speck of light would land right between Remus’s eyes.

“Justice,” Remus repeated, firmer than before. “And it’s Lupin, Black.”

“Justice. And do you think it’s justice to arrest me for stealing a diamond from people who stole it in the first place?” Sirius asked, genuinely curious.

Remus stared at him, at first in awe and then matching curiousity. “Why’d you become a thief?”

Sirius was a fan of that question. “My family raised me to be a thief. They just thought I’d be stealing from the poor, not the rich.”

There was a brief silence as Remus turned to the floor, his eyes moving as if reading something written on the tiles. Sirius watched, twisting the diamond slightly to the left.

When Remus raised his eyes, a speck of light landed right between them, and Sirius’s heart soared.

“You have five minutes to not be here,” Remus said, and walked out of the storage room.

Sirius gaped after him before hurriedly shoving the drawer shut and slipping the diamond into a velvet pouch he had kept in his pocket. Stuffing it back into his pocket, he chased after Remus, going so fast he was able to skid in front of him and walk backwards to talk.

“Can I steal something else?” Sirius asked, gleeful.

Remus raised an eyebrow. “What else do you want to steal?”

Sirius leaned forward and gave Remus a kiss, short but full of promise. Remus stopped in his tracks, and then, gently pressed his lips back just as Sirius pulled away, sending a thrill through him.

“Was that all?” Remus said, voice unimpressed and face flushed.

Sirius grinned. “Hope to see you again.”

“Only if you want to get caught,” Remus replied. It sounded like a promise, and another thrill shot up his chest.

“I do if you’re the one catching me,” Sirius said with a wink. With that, he disappeared into the building, Remus Lupin’s name fixing itself to the top of Sirius’s wish list.

\---

Sirius expected word of his near-capture to appear in the papers, but it never did. It seemed as though Remus hadn’t told anyone he had caught the thief that couldn’t be caught. It made Sirius’s heart flutter, and set him to planning his next major heist.

It took place six months later. His parents had just donated an ornate mirror to a temporary exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, a glorious hand mirror made of gold, diamonds, and emeralds. They claimed it was a family heirloom, but Sirius knew better. It had belonged to a branch of the Malfoy family that had insulted his mother three decades ago. Infuriated, the Black family brought down that particular branch’s entire textile business in less than a year, leaving them bankrupt and disowned. Their heir even ended up in a Black Family Securities prison for ten years. His mother bought the mirror before it had gone up for sale in public auction.

Breaking in went as smoothly as it always did, his pleasure doubled by the sight of Remus waiting for him by the mirror.

“You’ve got a pattern,” Remus noted as he watched Sirius carefully cut into the glass display case. “You always steal things that somehow come from your family, or from people who benefited from them.”

“I do,” Sirius said, pleased Remus had noticed. “This mirror and the diamond were obvious ones, though.”

Remus nodded. “Your last anniversary heist was at a tailor who cuts your father’s suits. The heist before that was at a jeweler who designed a bracelet at your mother’s request for her sister. And the heist before that was at the distillery that makes your father’s favorite whiskey.”

“I’m impressed,” Sirius said, setting the cut glass aside and reaching in for the mirror. “Sounds like you could write an unauthorized biography about us.”

Remus shrugged. “I saw you sold the diamond to a museum in India.”

“I used it as a very nice paperweight for two weeks first,” Sirius grinned. “I kept my commission as the salesman, but the rest of the money went to some schools near the place.”

They examined the mirror together, Sirius twirling it in his hands.

“No one needs a hand mirror this expensive,” Sirius said, nose curling.

“What’re you going to do with it?” Remus asked, watching Sirius’s reflection shift from side to side.

“Auction it off abroad, I think,” Sirius said. “Donate the proceeds to something my mother would hate. Maybe towards prison reform.”

Remus snorted. “She’d love that.”

There was quiet as Sirius carefully wrapped the mirror in a large velvet bag and held it by the handle.

“You want to get a drink sometime?” Sirius asked.

Remus raised an eyebrow. “When?”

“Maybe during the day,” Sirius grinned. “It’s a hard life, being a criminal. You always work when everyone else is asleep.”

“Let’s save it for a special occasion,” Remus said, checking his watch. “You’ve got eight minutes until Detective Inspector Pettigrew comes back around.”

“That idiot couldn’t catch me if I walked into his house,” Sirius said, rolling his eyes, but heading out anyway. Halfway across the room, he turned around and looked at Remus.

“Did you want to steal something else?” Remus asked mildly.

Sirius’s eyes danced. “I did.”

“Well, I’d hurry up if I were you,” Remus said, checking his watch again. “You’ve got a bit more than seven minutes now.”

“That’s plenty of time,” Sirius said, striding over and tugging Remus by the hip into a kiss. He kept it warm and inviting despite the pounding in his ears, and as he began to pull away he hoped Remus would stop him. In response, Remus licked Sirius’s bottom lip before capturing his mouth for another, one hand coming up to cup Sirius’s head and the other wrapping around his middle. Heart nearly bursting out of his chest, Sirius groaned and hugged Remus close, wrapping his arms around him firmly.

It took a mighty effort for Sirius to break the kiss again, much of that difficulty coming from the fact that Remus wasn’t letting up at all. “You know,” Sirius said, dazed, “I didn’t take you for the kissing criminals type when we first met.”

“I didn’t either,” Remus said, that adorable flush back on his face. Sirius couldn’t help but kiss him again, open and daring this time, and to his wild delight, Remus slipped his tongue into his mouth.

Remus broke the kiss next and checked his watch, panting. “Three minutes.”

Sirius tore himself away, jogging towards his escape route in an effort to resist the temptation to stay. “Drinks?” he called over his shoulder.

“We’ll have to pick a night you’re not working,” Remus answered back.

Sirius could not stop grinning for the next three days.

\---

Sirius didn’t see Remus at his next two heists, which disappointed him. True, they were considerably smaller in scale and significantly more difficult to predict, but Sirius had hoped anyway.

His next big heist was his anniversary heist. This year, he was stealing from his mother. There was a particular custom-made perfume she loved that was only sold direct from the maker in Paris. She went through it very quickly and was always buying more. Entire holiday seasons were ruined when someone accidentally spilled her perfume bottle.

He wanted to make sure she was going to be without it for a whole year, and her perfumer without the hefty profit.

The heist took a month. It started with interrupting supply chains and cutting the perfumer off from a crucial ingredient only harvested and shipped once a year in the late fall. All that took was mucking up the paperwork and intercepting the right correspondence. The perfumer wouldn’t realize it until early November, which was when Sirius implemented part two of his plan.

When Sirius broke into the perfumer’s shop, he honestly expected Remus to be waiting for him by the entrance. When he wasn’t, Sirius bit his lip and went about his work, snatching inventory and ignoring the pounding of his heart. He still needed to go through storage in the back, too, as well as through the factory next door. There was time to see him.

Remus wasn’t in either of those places. Sirius’s heart fell.

“Why are you mad?” Sirius berated himself. “This is your anniversary heist. You should be fucking enjoying it, not moping around like some love-struck schoolgirl. Quit being upset some bloke you just met didn’t follow the clues. You’ve only seen him twice in your life.”

Sirius kicked the door open on the way out of the factory anyway, intending to storm off into the night, however, something nagged at him to go back to the store. He stood in place for two minutes, arguing with himself, before groaning and dragging his feet back to the shop, trying to prepare himself for even more disappointment.

There was a note taped to the front door.

Blood rushed through to his face so fast he thought his chest was on fire. He forced himself to carefully unstick the note and opened it.

 

_Sorry I missed the chance for drinks._

_Happy birthday._

 

Sirius turned on the spot, trying to catch of glimpse of Remus in the darkness, but there was nothing. How did this happen? How did this note get here? When?

Sirius couldn’t remember later how he got home. All he could remember was that note.

\---

December 12 was only a month away, but Sirius was determined to make it special.

This time, Sirius decided to give Remus something of himself. He targeted his old boarding school, where he had gone for his first five years of schooling and where the Black family had been sending their children for generations. Despite his best efforts, he had not been allowed to live at the boarding school, which in his opinion defeated the purpose. No, the Black family heir had to learn the family business, and he couldn’t do that while trapped at school. He was trapped at home instead.

The heist was, essentially, to steal the school’s valuable collection of old books. Purchased with the money the school had received for allowing Sirius to live off campus, they were extremely rare and put on display in the lobby of the administrative wing. They were meant to go to a research university that would actually use them, but the boarding school had outbid them all. Sirius, who had gone to the Headmaster’s office quite a few times as a student, had shot them scathing looks every time he passed.

Unsure if Remus would know to meet him there, Sirius left him a series of clues: quotes about his education with a random journalist, a small heist at the auction house that had sold the books in the first place, and another heist at the home of the former Headmaster who had arranged it all. Surely Remus would understand that. He had spotted the perfumer trail, after all.

Sirius was antsy all of December 11, and when he finally broke into the school in the wee hours of December 12, he was positively jittery. He had tried to time it so that he reached the books at the same time he had reached the diamond, and hoped beyond hope that Remus would catch up to him.

When Sirius got to the book display, he was thrilled to see Remus already sitting on it with a glass of whiskey in his hand. A mostly full bottle and an empty glass rested beside him.

Remus toasted Sirius. “I reckon an anniversary is a special enough occasion.”

Sirius was smiling so broadly he thought his face might split. “You are without a doubt the best detective on the force. They should be paying you double.”

“I don’t know if I’m the best,” Remus said mildly, pouring Sirius a glass. “After all, I keep missing the uncatchable thief.”

Sirius accepted the glass and took a sip, eying Remus giddily over the edge of the glass. “Why did you come?”

Remus looked around at the offices surrounding them. “Did you know I went here at the same time you did?”

“You did?” Sirius asked, thrown.

Remus nodded. “I was a scholarship student. Obviously.” He gestured at his clothes. “I arrived the year before you left.” There was a pause. “You were always so angry.”

Sirius sighed and looked down at his glass. “I was trapped.”

“I know.”

Sirius lifted his gaze back up and met Remus’s eyes, thrilling in surprise.

“I was tempted to talk to you before you left,” Remus said, “but I didn’t work up the courage in time. And I left a year after you did, anyway.” His shoulders fell.

“What happened?” Sirius asked, sitting on the book display beside Remus.

“I was hurt,” Remus said, swirling his whiskey in his glass. “Over the summer. My father had angered the wrong man, and that man decided the proper payback was to have me beat to death in my own room while my parents were out at a dinner party.” Remus’s hand gripped the glass tighter. “They never did find him.”

Sirius’s face went white and his vision went red. “Who did that, I swear I’ll fucking - ”

“I said _they_  didn’t find him,” Remus interrupted, taking a swig of whiskey. “ _I_ , however, did find him. He’d done a lot of shit since trying to kill me, and I gathered enough evidence of that to put him away for life.”

Sirius cursed before downing his entire glass in one go. It burned in his throat, and he exhaled loudly, relishing the pain. Remus picked up the bottle and served him more.

“Hey, you trying to make me easier to catch me?” Sirius joked, trying to lighten their mood.

“I already caught you, Black,” Remus replied, topping himself off.

There was a comfortable pause as they nursed their drinks.

“We should do this again,” Remus said. “Drinks. It’s nice.”

“What, the date over already?”

Remus chuckled. “I won’t crush your dreams like that.”

“That’s very noble of you. I got your birthday note,” Sirius said. “Thanks.”

“I’m glad you got it,” Remus said, relieved.

“Did you have a lot of trouble getting to Paris?”

“I didn’t make it, actually. I had to get someone to deliver it for me. Maybe keep your big heists to the UK, so it’s easier for me to see you.”

Sirius laughed. “Don’t want a life of crime with me?”

Remus snorted into his glass. “Someone has to make sure you don’t get arrested.”

There was another pause as Sirius pulled out his lock picking kit.

“So,” Sirius said, untying the small leather wallet in his palm, “you became a detective because you’ve been in love with me since we were teenagers?”

Remus gave Sirius that wonderfully pink unimpressed look. “Shut up, Black-”

“And when you saw my name in the papers you knew that would be the only way to find me?” Sirius leaned into Remus with a toothy grin.

“You know that’s not what happened,” Remus snapped back, blush deepening. “I joined the force to catch the man that tried to kill me, not to find you.”

“Finding me was just a perk,” Sirius said, and kissed Remus’s nose.

A second later, Sirius’s laughter rang through the halls as Remus shoved him off the book display, and he immediately decided December 12 was going to need a major heist every year, now, too.


End file.
